Fire escapes, pavements, benches: starved of back gardens and good local parks, New Yorkers will sunbathe anywhere. Photographer Ashley Gilbertson captured them this summer, squeezed into unlikely spots, or lying prone on concrete and handkerchief-sized patches of grass in the shadows of skyscrapers.→

In a city whose inhabitants are so infamously pushed for time, it’s easier, it seems, to drag a duvet and some cushions out on to your Greenwich Village fire escape than haul yourself uptown to Central Park. It may be uncomfortable but, away from the hordes, it looks rather peaceful. →

These photographs were taken in July, just days before New York’s 100-degree temperatures gave way to a dramatic storm that ripped through Manhattan, with giant hailstones and skies straight out of a disaster movie. →

For some New Yorkers, even sunbathing can be a chance to make a statement. A group of women caused a minor hoo-ha in June when they decided to form a topless sunbathing book club. Putting to the test a state law that says women can go bare-chested anywhere a man can, they held their meetings in Central Park, hotel rooftops, even on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum. →

Gilbertson is best known as a war photographer, working mostly in Iraq. He has documented the empty bedrooms of deceased soldiers, war “dress rehearsals” for trainees at a military base in Louisiana, and the impact of the suicide of a young Iraqi veteran, Noah Pierce. →